Live from Google I/O 2011's opening keynote!

We're camped out on the corner of Howard and 3rd, but Google I/O 2011's opening keynote hasn't started quite yet. You're still in the right place, though -- bookmark this very page and return at the time listed below for blow-by-blow coverage as it happens.

12:55PM And that's a wrap, folks! Pretty intense keynote for the opening day, and we're promised even more tomorrow. We'll be here bringing it to you live, of course!

12:53PM By the way, it's 8.6mm and 565g, and Honeycomb 3.1 will hit "over the next couple of weeks." That means that it should be live by the time it starts shipping to consumers, though there's no indication of a price.

12:51PM Curiously enough, Google just mentioned Ice Cream Sandwich again without a version number. Hmm.

12:51PM Not surprisingly, Google's hoping for developers to take all of this to the next level, and by the smoke billowing out of the ears surrounding us, we're guessing the gears are already turning.

12:50PM An NFC-enabled CD touches a Tungsten speaker. From there, the entire album is loaded into one's Music Beta library, and with another tap, the album starts to play. Totally wild, but aren't CDs a technology that croaked in 1985? Let's try smartphone tapping!

12:49PM The whole framework will be completely open. Another Tungsten demo about to go down, with a clause that this is totally a prototype at the moment.

12:48PM Music Beta by Google is being used with these new interactive devices, and it's just more home automation. A tablet is being used to control which music goes to which speaker, for example.

12:47PM Next, Project Tungsten.

12:47PM LightingScience will start selling Android-compatible lights by the end of this year, but no pricing is being announced. A good start, but Google's going to need a heck of a lot more hardware support before this thing takes off. The home automation market is fractured enough as-is.

12:46PM Here's a crazy Quake demo -- as shots are fired, lamps on stage are flickering. Not quite total immersion, but close!

12:45PM Developers will have crazy options: an alarm clock app that slowly fades the lights up while cranking your home stereo. Game devs can use Android at Home to control an irrigation system for enabling "a real-world Farmville app," where your garden perishes if you do a poor job. Laughs all around.

12:44PM We're seeing a tablet control floor lamps, much like Z-Wave and Zigbee systems have been doing for years.

12:44PM Did Google just enter the home automation market?

12:44PM For appliances that can't connect to WiFi, Google's designed another protocol that'll work with anything electrical in your home -- dishwashers, thermostats, etc. Everything in your home is a potential connected device.

12:43PM Android at Home is the new vision, making your Android device the "center" of your life. Discover, connect and communication with devices in the home -- that's the goal.

12:43PM An "even larger type of accessory" is being teased. People are ducking and phoning their loved ones.

12:42PM The ADK is welcoming hardware designers into the Android ecosystem. No NDAs, no fees, good stuff.

12:42PM Here's a video of a far larger demo for the ADK. It's a monstrous Labyrinth board in a building, controlled by the reference hardware. accessories.android.com is the place to go if you're interested in starting development on this stuff. By the way, please start development on this stuff.

12:41PM Whoa, some seriously crazy stuff going down in the demo. A physical Labyrinth board is being controlled by a Xoom over USB. We'd love if the cords were cut from day one, but we'll take the progress.

12:40PM Today, Google's busting out a reference hardware design, based on an Arduino and it incorporates USB integration now, and Bluetooth in the future. It's being dubbed an "ADK."

12:39PM The Open Accessory API supports Android 2.4.3 and 3.1.

12:38PM CardioQuest app is being shown off, with an exercise bike being able to recognize that it's there. From there, the API has the bike control the game that's shown on the phone. This is totally wild -- the faster he goes, the more the game changes in real-time. Truly wild. We aren't super stoked on exercising, but the potential applications are incredible.

12:37PM We've got a fitness demo about to go down. And some dude just yanked his pants off and hopped on a treadmill. A strange amount of laud from the crowd.

12:36PM Android Open Accessory announced! Think "Made for iPod," but by Google.

12:36PM Between this and the desire for "one OS," it's glaringly obvious that Google's tackling fragmentation head-on. Huzzah.

12:35PM The keynote's moving on, but our head is still spinning here. And we're sure the heads of Epic 4G owners are as well.

12:35PM Those shown will be provided timely updates for at least 18 months provided the hardware can handle it. Whoa. WHOA!

12:34PM New guidelines! Man, this is going to be huge. Google's laying out a timeline for how long it'll take a device to get updated once a new build is let loose, as well as how long it'll be updated beyond that.

12:33PM Any device running Android 2.2+ can download the app today, and you can goof off with the settings while patiently awaiting your invite. Sounds fun. Or not.

12:32PM Everyone here at Google I/O's getting an invite, and otherwise, you can visit music.google.com to put your name on the list.

12:32PM Uh oh! "At least while it's in beta, the service is free." Not exactly the kind of closer we'd like to hear.

12:32PM Launching in beta "today," rolled out in stages, initially available via invites to US users. C'mon Google -- get international!

12:31PM A good point from Google: should you buy a new phone, anything you've created within Music Beta is instantly available as soon as you sign in. No cables, no syncing. But again, since it's all cloud-based, you'll need access to the world wide web.

12:31PM The same Make Available Offline feature that was shown for Movies is here as well. A phone demo showing it off on Froyo demonstrates a more compact UI, designed to handle smaller (smartphone) screens.

12:30PM In case you haven't gleaned it yet, this is all about cloud storage of music. It's effectively Dropbox, but tailored for music.

12:29PM Users of this "won't ever have to use a cable to add music again." Yeah, but you'll need an internet connection!

12:29PM This is Google's version of Genius, and unlike those "other smart playlist creation tools," El Goog's actually "listens" to your songs to make an even smarter mix. Them's fightin' words!

12:28PM Once you create a playlist, it's instantly available on phones, tablets, everything. Here comes a new feature: Instant Mix.

12:27PM There's a web interface -- ratings, play counts, playlists, it's all there. Recently played is, too. Playback is instant here in the demo, presumably sucking down tunes from the cloud.

12:27PM "Perhaps you heard a rumor or two." Hah! Here's a demo; available for Mac and PC. Talking up the playlist feature right now.

12:26PM Ha, no painful syncing. Zing, Apple!

12:26PM Paul Joyce is out to unveil (officially, anyway) Music Beta by Google.

12:25PM "Thousands" of movies are available, and if you visit market.android.com, the Movie rental experience is live now. The Movies app will be bundled in with the Honeycomb 3.1 update. For the phone? It'll hit Android 2.2+ devices "in a couple of weeks."

12:24PM Just so we're clear, purchased / rented movies can be watched on the web, on tablets, and on phones. Kudos!

12:24PM Ah, HD selections for $4.99, nice!

12:24PM Wow, definitely a slick interface. Clean and simple.

12:23PM In addition to playing back movies, rentals can be accomplished "directly within the tablet."

12:23PM He's talking situations where cloud access is unavailable. A new feature called "Pinning" can be automatically downloaded in the background, so when a user hops on a Gogo-less flight, for example, it's there for viewing. Hopefully your airport connection is solid!

12:22PM Demo time on the Xoom -- there's a new Movies application, and a movie that was just rented on the web now shows on the Xoom. It's unclear at this point if you could rent within the app, though.

12:21PM Android Market has a 30-day rental period. Once you start watching it, however, you have 24 hours to complete the viewing.

12:21PM Really insane -- the Android Market homepage now includes movies. The Movies section has its own portal, too. If you're even remotely familiar with Netflix, you'll be at home here.

12:20PM The same experience used to download e-books is coming to movies as well! Instant streaming is coming today to Android devices (waiting on version clarification). Prices start at $1.99.

12:20PM Chris from the Android Cloud Services Team is on stage to talk even more new features. Also, to explain where he gets his amazing hair cut.

12:18PM Here's a legit usage case: Virtual Camera Operator is viewing two individuals, and as one starts talking, the software shifts and pans over to him, and as the secondary individual starts talking, it shifts again. Shockingly smooth.

12:18PM A headtracking and OpenGL demo is tracking an employee's face and shifting an image based on his perspective, in real-time. The system can also detect where a user's head, nose and eyes are, allowing a makeover app to cause all sorts of facial distortion -- not since the days of Mario 64 have we seen anything such as this.

12:17PM Ice Cream Sandwich is about "depth and breadth." Demo time!

12:16PM Naturally, everything here will be open source. Huge applause for that one.

12:16PM That includes the holographic UI, richer widgets, "everything." Google's looking to invest heavily in the application framework, and while Mike isn't saying so, we're getting the impression that this is a move to battle against fragmentation.

12:15PM Mike Claron: "We want one OS that runs everywhere."

12:15PM Ice Cream Sandwich is Google's "most ambitious" release to date, and the key word here is "choice." This new OS will power tablets, convertible laptops, phones, etc.

12:14PM Sadly, it looks as if we'll have to wait until tomorrow for more on Google TV. But on the flipside, Android Ice Cream just got official... with a new logo! Er, what?

12:12PM With Android 3.1, devices can now be used as hosts. Import photos directly from your digital camera to your tablet, and a "ridiculous" amount of USB devices are now supported, including game controllers! An Xbox 360 gamepad is being used in a game demo with an Android app.

12:12PM That's a major update to Honeycomb -- Mike Cleron from the Android Engineering Team is talking up some of the new features. The scrolling Gmail widget is being used as an example; widgets are now customizable in terms of horizontal or vertical stretching. Existing widgets can be upgraded "with just a few lines of XML."

12:10PM Whoa, Android 3.1 hitting Verizon Xoom customers today!

12:09PM Two exiting new services coming today!

12:09PM Another big number: 200,000. This one applies to the amount of available apps in the Android Market today. We're also told that it took around two years to see one billion Android apps downloaded, and now, Google's seen 4.5 billion app installs to date. In fact, it only took 60 days to see the last billion downloaded.

12:07PM Currently, we've got 310 devices in 112 countries; at this point last year, Google was activating 100,000 devices a day, up to 300,000 by December of last year. Now, the outfit's seeing 400,000 device activations "every single day."

12:05PM Quick video on the insane growth of Android -- a leap from 500,000 activations to 100 million activations in 2011.

12:05PM Momentum. Mobile. More. That's the agenda, and out comes the T-Mobile G1 -- the very first Googlephone. We aren't quite sure the point here, but people are weeping around us. It's a little odd, to be frank.

12:04PM "Let's get this show started." Out comes Hugo Barra, Product Management Director for Android, to officially kick the keynote off.

12:03PM Google's talking up just how connected this year's Google I/O is, with 122 viewing parties (at last count) around the world. Things just got real crowded in here.

12:02PM Oh, snap! Vic just let an image say a thousand words -- got quite the rise from the crowd.

12:02PM Recapping some of the achievements over the years, noting that in 2008, the focus was on connectivity and the cloud. Some things never change, eh?

12:01PM Vic Gundotra just waltzed on stage, pretty proud that the company's holding its fourth Google I/O conference. The crowd seems even more proud.

11:59AM Okay, confirmed: it's bad. Painful, anyway.

11:56AM Trance is getting intense as we enter the five minute barrier. Can't determine if that's a good or a bad thing.

11:46AM Ze countdown, as they say, has begun. We're guessing we'll soon hear more on Google Music, but your guess is as good as ours as to what comes next. Our money's on Android-shaped M&Ms for the holiday season, though.